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Sunday, August 21, 2016

In 1973, Nolan Ryan struck out 383 batters out of 1355 batters faced for a 28.3% strikeout rate. In 2015, Clayton Kershaw struck out 301 batters out of 890 batters faced for a 33.8% strikeout rate. With that raw data, you'd say Kershaw was better than Ryan and, objectively, you'd be right. That, however, doesn't take in to account the rest of the league. Strikeouts now are much higher than they were back in 1973, so how can we compare the two? With any luck, like this.

Saturday, April 5, 2014

The regular season has begun, which means the annual question of "When will we be disappointed" creeps into the back of our minds. With the first four games in the books, that question has gotten drowned out due to optimism. Basically, optimism means you have a more positive outlook on everything. Being a Mariners fan, you may have forgotten that, so I wanted to refresh your memory. If you want the dictionary definition, the first entry says, "1. a disposition or tendency to look on the more favorable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favorable outcome."

After four games? Really? Well, yes. Given that there's another 158 games left, that could change rather quickly, but looking on the bright side, no matter how short of an existence it may have, is a refreshing change of pace for us fans. What's happened in those first few games? The fourth one was dumped on pretty heavily by Hector Noesi and a rookie ump by the name of Sean Barber. I'd rather not relive it, so we won't.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Throughout the offseason and still, on occasion this spring, there has been whispers about the death of the power hitter in baseball. Unfortunately, it got me thinking and, inevitably, down the rabbit hole that is baseball statistics. Speaking of which, a big thank you goes to Baseball Reference for providing the stats I needed and not making it too much of a nightmare to find it all.

I came in to this not really expecting anything. The possibility was there that the power era was ending and the new gap power and speed era was beginning. To sum up the process, I started in 1901 and went through 2013. I used 30 home runs or more as the basis of a power hitter, which is partly my own personal bias. To me, 25 home runs is indicative of a hitter with power, but not a pure power hitter. I took the number of players with 30+ home runs in a season, the total number of home runs by all players, overall home runs per game for MLB and the percentage of home runs those players contributed that year (home runs of 30+ player/total home runs hit that season). It does not take in to account ballparks, but the numbers are based on all teams and all players rather than a strict comparison of specific players. With any luck, it doesn't make me look like a complete dunce. To make up for it, I also have some pretty graphs thrown in for visual aids. Shall we begin?

Sunday, December 15, 2013

As I'm sure most of you have heard by now, the Mariners signed Corey Hart to a 1 year, $6 million dollar deal with incentives that could push his contract to $13 million. They also traded Carter Capps to the Miami Marlins for Logan Morrison. The loss of Capps is not exactly a major thing. Bullpen arms are a dime a dozen and decent young arms might push it to a quarter. He was labeled as an up and coming closer, but as we've seen all over baseball, a serviceable closer is not something that should be coveted given how mercurial bullpen arms, let alone closers, can be.

All that is to say, two more OF/1B/DH types have been added to the roster for cheap. $6 million base salary for Hart and a young reliever who is still developing for another. What does this mean for the Mariners? It means they're not done. Hopefully.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

For the most part, this isn't going to be too terribly fact based because, let's face it, there are plenty of posts out there already you can read. Or you can look up the stats yourself just as easily. This internet thing can be quite helpful at times, if you know how to use it. Since you're here, I'll assume you have a fairly decent idea of what you're doing.

Friday morning and some ungodly hour, it was reported that the talks had imploded for reasons beyond our understanding. We know what people are saying, but nobody that's written about it was in the room, so it'll be chalked up to conjecture. That being said, the simple version is Cano's camp balked, demanded another year and more money, Lincoln came to life long enough to go postal, but the talks never completely died. The end result being a 10 year, $240 million dollar deal being agreed to and will become official Monday after Robinson Cano takes a physical. Was this a smart move on anybody's part? Crazy? Brilliant? All of the above? I'm going with yes.